The present invention relates to the field of solid and liquid waste disposal units, and particularly to incinerators which are used for that purpose.
Generally, there are many advantages to incinerating solid and liquid wastes. In particular, the incineration of these wastes reduces the solids to be disposed of to an inert, mineral ash, which is approximately ten percent of the initial weight of the original wastes. Additionally, where inert elements, such as metals and glass, are constituents of the wastes to be disposed of, incineration makes final separation of these desirable materials much more practical. Alternatively, in a non-oxidizing environment, incineration allows for the reclamation of organic materials by operating the incinerator as a pyrolysis unit. Finally, the incineration of unwanted wastes produces great quantities of heat which may be tapped as a vital energy source for power generation or heating.
Recently, however, growing concern with the environmental consequences of incineration, and particularly those environmental problems which are caused by exhausting unclean stack gases into the atmosphere, have shifted the emphasis in solid and liquid wastes disposal to landfills, land reclamations, ocean dumping and various composting techniques. These various alternatives have met with limited success, in part due to the fact that many of these alternative processes have produced secondary environmental problems which are also of grave concern.
Recently, much attention has been directed towards the cleansing of stack gases, and particularly the stack gases produced by fossil fuel burning power plants, in an effort to reduce the air contamination which heretofore has accompanied the operation of these installations. Currently, the recognized technique for cleansing stack gases is to place various antipollution devices "downstream" from the incineration zone. Generally, these antipollution devices include cyclonic and electrostatic precipitators, as well as wet and dry lime scrubbers.
More recently, methods such as those described in my prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,647,358, relating to methods of catalytically inducing the oxidation of carbonaceous materials by the use of molten salts, have provided alternative means for removing normally unburned pollutant products of combustion, such as carbon, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, by contacting such materials with a molten salt. Methods of this general nature have proved to be particularly useful, not only in treating gaseous media, but also in facilitating the catalytic oxidation of solid and liquid materials. These, and similar methods, are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,647,358 and 3,642,583 and 3,766,087.